•Inadequacies in the disposal methods lead disruptive environmental deprivation.•Database approach is used to assess the RHA utilisation in concrete for first time.•Boundary conditions played a key ...role in sustainability performance of RHA concrete.•The use of RHA and pozzolans in concrete could reduce the carbon footprint by 25%.•RHA incorporation in concrete offers a greener disposal lane for agricultural wastes.
The agriculture industry has grown dramatically by about three times over the last 50 years due to the rapid population growth, improvements in green production technology and agricultural land development. Rice is the second most-consumed agricultural product globally. The rice husk ash (RHA), attained by burning the husk that is removed in the process of rice production, possesses high pozzolanic activity and therefore is a promising supplementary cementitious material. Despite the numerous studies on the successful incorporation of RHA in concrete in the literature, a comprehensive assessment on the sustainability aspects of these practices has not yet been solely and exclusively addressed. The paper reports findings from the analysis of a large database on the RHA incorporation in concrete. Principal sustainability components such as CO2 emissions, cost efficiency and eco-strength efficiency are described. The database, comprising over 1000 data points has been utilized to assess the key factors that have significant influences on the mechanical properties of concrete comprising RHA using the established set of criteria. Independent determination of the boundary conditions played a vital role in the sustainability assessment. The results showed that the use of RHA along with the other pozzolanic materials can yield a 25% diminution in the CO2 emissions generated during the concrete production in conjunction with a 65% rise in the cost efficiency of such practices. The findings reported in this study demonstrate improved sustainability for construction practice and highlight greener waste management routes that can be established for RHA.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
This paper presents a combined experimental and numerical study on the low-velocity impact behavior of honeycomb-core sandwich panels with different structural parameters, including facesheet ...thickness, core height, honeycomb cell size, and cell wall thickness. Impact tests were conducted at four different energies using a drop-weight impact facility, and the deformation and damage characteristics of the tested sandwich panels were analyzed by microscopic X-ray computed tomography. The experimental results revealed two distinct failure modes of sandwich panels: namely mode A, with localized damage in both facesheets and core, which is dominated by indentation; and mode B, which is characterized by global bending deflection of the facesheets and overall core crushing. It was found that a sandwich panel with thin facesheets and a high-density honeycomb core (e.g. with a small cell size and/or a thick cell wall) tended to fail in mode A, but core height did not influence the failure mechanism notably. Furthermore, finite element modeling was carried out to gain further understanding of the effects of these structural parameters. The perforation resistance and energy absorption capacity were significantly enhanced with increasing facesheet thickness. Whereas reducing the cell size and/or thickening the cell wall resulted in lower perforation resistance. When the total thickness of facesheets remained a constant, the impact behavior of the sandwich structure could be optimized by controlling the thickness ratio of the front to back facesheets. Finally, cost efficiency analysis was performed to achieve a rational design of the sandwich structure considering both the impact performance and cost.
•Two failure modes of sandwich panels are discovered under low-velocity impact.•Failure mode depends on facesheet thickness, cell size, and cell wall thickness.•Core height does not influence the failure mechanism notably.•The density of honeycomb core shows a negative effect on perforation resistance.•A cost efficiency analysis is proposed to balance the impact performance and cost.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
•Comprehensive analysis of country-specific boundary conditions and success factors.•National heat supply systems and incentive policies are essential.•Role of district heating utilities in Denmark ...for solar district heating success.•Technological solutions and best practice examples of large-scale systems.•First-hand market research on China shows higher market penetration than assumed.
Large-scale solar thermal systems are a cost-efficient technology to provide renewable heat. The rapid market growth in the last decade has been concentrated on a small number of countries, with the outstanding position of Denmark followed by China, Germany and Austria. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the market and common technological solutions for large-scale solar thermal systems in these countries. Country-specific factors, including solar resources, heat supply systems, competing technologies, promotion schemes and business models, which put these countries in a leading role, are analyzed in detail using an integrated assessment framework. For each country, a best practice solar heating system is introduced. The analysis shows that heat supply by large-scale solar thermal systems is a mature technology with a broad field of applications and that mainly country-specific boundary conditions regarding the heat supply system and incentive policy are responsible for the preeminent role of these four countries. The unique role of district heating utilities in Denmark, which are subject to a national emissions trading system and often act both as investors and operators of large-scale solar thermal systems, can serve as a role model for other countries.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
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•State-of-the-Art of 3DP technology in textile clothing industries.•Materials and process descriptions relevant to manufacturing 3D printed polymer-fiber composites in textile and ...fashion.•In depth discussion on SLS, SLA, FDM, inkjet, binder and micro-extrusion printing process.•Future prospects of 3DP in regard to sustainability, novelty, complexity in fashion related fields.•Personalized style and design-oriented textile apparel and accessories.
Three-dimensional printing (3DP) technology has gained an increased popularity in making prototypes in all types of manufacturing industries including automotive, healthcare, aerospace, sports, textile, apparel and fashion industry etc. Researchers, textile technologists, fashion designers, manufacturers and retailers have been working on adopting 3DP technology in their respective fields since the last decade. 3DP has been proved highly beneficial in reducing manufacturing time and production cost significantly regarding fiber reinforced composites fabrication. However, the application of this technology is still at niche while it comes to manufacturing everyday clothing. The purpose of this paper is to provide an integrative review of the existing literature to identify current state-of-the-art 3DP methods, materials, application in the textile and fashion industries. Further, the review considers the future of this technology with regard to sustainability, novelty, complexity in fashion related fields.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Federated Learning (FL) has been proposed as an appealing approach to handle data privacy issue of mobile devices compared to conventional machine learning at the remote cloud with raw user data ...uploading. By leveraging edge servers as intermediaries to perform partial model aggregation in proximity and relieve core network transmission overhead, it enables great potentials in low-latency and energy-efficient FL. Hence we introduce a novel Hierarchical Federated Edge Learning (HFEL) framework in which model aggregation is partially migrated to edge servers from the cloud. We further formulate a joint computation and communication resource allocation and edge association problem for device users under HFEL framework to achieve global cost minimization. To solve the problem, we propose an efficient resource scheduling algorithm in the HFEL framework. It can be decomposed into two subproblems: resource allocation given a scheduled set of devices for each edge server and edge association of device users across all the edge servers. With the optimal policy of the convex resource allocation subproblem for a set of devices under a single edge server, an efficient edge association strategy can be achieved through iterative global cost reduction adjustment process, which is shown to converge to a stable system point. Extensive performance evaluations demonstrate that our HFEL framework outperforms the proposed benchmarks in global cost saving and achieves better training performance compared to conventional federated learning.
Our community is still far away from achieving self‐sustainable ambient intelligence, since it calls for rational energy layouts to satisfy the ubiquitous power demands from diverse terminal ...products. Harnessing energy directly from the surroundings thus provides ideal solutions. The majority of existing environmental harvesters rely on sophisticated procedures and expensive or toxic materials; while others attempt to streamline the complexity at the cost of compromising performance. This entails transducers that exhibit superb outputs and also employ cost‐effective, even recycled materials and straightforward protocols to render ubiquitous deployments. Here, a high‐efficiency droplet energy nanogenerator (DENG) is devised to satisfy all the requirements. The DENG is fabricated by directly coating a composite layer on a recycled digital video disk surface. It achieves superb electricity generation from one droplet, with an output voltage of >190 V at an instantaneous power density of 65 W m−2, and an energy conversion efficiency of 3.60%. Diverse demonstrations confirm the applicability of the DENG in environmental networks, encompassing self‐sustainable “on plants” sensing systems, smart building windows, and remote environmental monitoring platforms. In light of these superiorities, it is believed that the DENG may open up new alternative routes for future energy strategies.
A high‐efficiency droplet energy nanogenerator (DENG) is devised relying on straightforward fabrication and recycled materials. It achieves superb electrical outputs, with a voltage of > 190 V, a power density of 65W m−2, and an energy conversion efficiency of 3.6%. A single device weighs ≈0.8 grams, making it easily implemented on diverse outdoor scenarios for self‐sustainable environmental intelligent networks.
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FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Globally, the use of antibiotic in animal industry was well known in the 20th century. Antibiotics usage as therapeutic and subtherapeutic means of improving growth and feed efficiency in livestock ...was well documented in literature. However, continuous use of antibiotics in food animals for increased growth and disease prevention has resulted in the development of antibiotic resistant bacteria in animals. This has led to disease treatment failure in the affected animals. The problem of transmission of antibiotic resistant bacteria to human through food chain and contamination of environment is another challenge of antibiotic usage in poultry production. Hence, the ban was placed on antibiotic usage in animal production. The restriction to the use of animal growth promoting antibiotic has gained high compliance in the developed countries. However, in the third world countries, this is still a battle that is on-going. To achieve the 2023 Global Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance goal, a lot is still left to be done. This review synthesized information on implications of antibiotics use on broiler chickens’ production cost efficiency and profitability; impact of antibiotics mode of action, diseases prevention and treatments of infection in broiler chickens’ production; challenges of antibiotics residual effect on meat quality and safety and alternatives to synthetic antibiotic for broiler chickens’ production.
Xanthan gum, an anionic polysaccharide with an exceptionally high molecular weight, is produced by the bacterium Xanthomonas sp. It is a versatile compound that has been utilized in various ...industries for decades. Xanthan gum was the second exopolysaccharide to be commercially produced, following dextran. In 1969, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved xanthan gum for use in the food and pharmaceutical industries. The food industry values xanthan gum for its exceptional rheological properties, which make it a popular thickening agent in many products. Meanwhile, the cosmetics industry capitalizes on xanthan gum's ability to form stable emulsions. The industrial production process of xanthan gum involves fermenting Xanthomonas in a medium that contains glucose, sucrose, starch, etc. as a substrate and other necessary nutrients to facilitate growth. This is achieved through batch fermentation under optimal conditions. However, the increasing costs of glucose in recent years have made the production of xanthan economically unviable. Therefore, many researchers have investigated alternative, cost‐effective substrates for xanthan production, using various modified and unmodified raw materials. The objective of this analysis is to investigate how utilizing different raw materials can improve the cost‐efficient production of xanthan gum.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Integration of models for storms and floods, damages and protections, should aid resilience planning and investments.
Recent flood disasters in the United States (2005, 2008, 2012); the Philippines ...(2012, 2013); and Britain (2014) illustrate how vulnerable coastal cities are to storm surge flooding (
1
). Floods caused the largest portion of insured losses among all catastrophes around the world in 2013 (
2
). Population density in flood-prone coastal zones and megacities is expected to grow by 25% by 2050; projected climate change and sea level rise may further increase the frequency and/or severity of large-scale floods (
3
–
7
).
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BFBNIB, NMLJ, NUK, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Background
Advances in vitrification techniques have enabled planned oocyte cryopreservation (‘Planned OC’).
Objectives
To explore the cost‐efficiency and utilisation of planned OC, as well as ...patients’ perspectives on the process.
Search strategy
A systematic search in PubMed/MEDLINE, Embase, Cochrane Database and PsychINFO, for all relevant studies published between January 2007 and December 2019.
Selection criteria
The protocol followed PRISMA guidelines in PECO format, and was registered with PROSPERO.
Data collection and analysis
Two independent reviewers evaluated all manuscripts for inclusion eligibility. Authors were contacted for missing data. Included studies were assessed for risk of bias and for heterogeneity. Weighted effects were measured and plotted.
Main results
The search yielded 12 545 records, of which 43 were included. Planned OC is cost‐efficient at 35, assuming 60% utilisation; and at 37 assuming utilising donor sperm when necessary. At 38 it is cost‐efficient to defer planned OC in favour of undergoing 2 IVF cycles. Currently, utilisation of banked‐oocytes within 22–58 months, is up to 15%. Nine percent of warmed banked oocytes result in life births. Online resources and treating physicians are equally important sources of information regarding planned OC. Most patients think planned OC is ideal before age 35 and are not fully aware of what the process entails and tend to overestimate the success rates. The main barrier to wider endorsement of planned OC is being wary of potential health implications or of limited success.
Conclusion
Planned OC is an adequate method for preserving fertility. However, knowledge gaps result in under‐utilisation leading to reduced cost‐efficiency.
Tweetable
Identifying facilitators and barriers for wider adoption of banking oocytes can enhance the cost‐efficiency of this modality.
Tweetable
Identifying facilitators and barriers for wider adoption of banking oocytes can enhance the cost‐efficiency of this modality.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
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